Pruning the Grape Vines -- a Brutiful Experience....

I spent a little time with 'Ed' the Gardening Guru/Owner of Starview Nursery just N.E. of LaGrange, KY and he told me how to prune the grapevines and encouraged me to be 'brutal'when deciding what to cut and what to leave. He said the #1 problem most people have is that they are not 'brutal' enough in their pruning. Ed assured me that the crop of grapes would justify the brutal pruning.

So, I took him at his word and got brutal with willy nilly vines that didn't fit the trellis plan I have in mind and I got serious about removing would be vines that would pull nutrients away from the main vine.

My objective is simple -- an abundant juicy harvest of fantastic home grown grapes this September! The process seemed a bit painful to me, but that's why I have grape vines.

It's not about the grapes at all -- they serve as a 'spiritual practice' where I consider God's concern for me and for the production of fruit in my life. It reminds me that at time God has to be 'brutal' with all of us to remove what won't yield the fruit He's designed us for. When I'm working with the vines I'm mindful of Jesus teaching his disciples about the necessity of pruning for fruit production in John 15. He assured his vineyard onlookers that God's intention is to have us bear much fruit, which is to the Father's glory.

I heard a speaker share one time that God's work with us 'brutal & beautiful' at the same time and he called it 'brutiful'.

If you're in a season where you feel as though you're being pruned brutally, then you're not alone and God's intent for you is that you bear much fruit -- and, it requires a 'brutiful' pruning every now and then. Look forward to what He is helping you become and the outcomes that the vinedresser has in mind!

Happy Pruning!

Jeff Fuson

-Point Leader of Phos Church near Louisville Kentucky
-Leadership Keynote Speaker
-Husband / Daddy
-Missional Church Planter

Power of a Mentor! Who's got your back?

There's nothing more powerful than being able to discuss what's happening in your life candidly and openly with a mentor who's 'been there and done that' to give you perspective. I'm so pumped that I got to spend a little time with one of my mentors, Bill Perkins, on the phone a few minutes ago and I'm so refreshed and energized that I'm gonna have a hard time getting rest this evening!

We all need someone (or lots of someones) to get our backs don't we? Because we simply can't see 360 degrees around us at all times. A mentor can see things we miss and help us unearth solutions that are simple and profound in that they were right there for the picking but our mentor has to ask the right question to remove the blinders and help us 'see' the solution.

Who's got your back?

Jeff Fuson

p.s. I'd encourage to grab any of Bill's books and dive into it! If you're a guy you've got to devour, 'When Good Men are Tempted' and 'Six Rules Every Man Must Break' NOW! Ladies it'd be a good idea for you to read 'When Good Men are Tempted' as well and you'll have a 'user's manual' on how your man is wired and how to help him succeed spiritually at honoring his vows to you!

-Point Leader of Phos Church near Louisville Kentucky
-Leadership Keynote Speaker
-Husband / Daddy
-Missional Church Planter

Kaleb's John Wall Build a Bear

Evelyn took Kaleb to Build a Bear d
For his baptism this evening!

Six Hours by Max Lucado

Six Hours

Six hours one Friday. Six hours that jut up on the plain of human history like Mount Everest in a desert. Six hours that have been deciphered, dissected, and debated for two thousand years.

What do these six hours signify? They claim to be the door in time through which eternity entered man’s darkest caverns. They mark the moments that the Navigator descended into the deepest waters to leave anchor points for His followers.

What does that Friday mean?

For the life blackened with failure, that Friday means forgiveness.

For the heart scarred with futility, that Friday means purpose.

And for the soul looking into the this side of the tunnel of death, that Friday means deliverance.

Six Hours. One Friday.

What do you do with those six hours on that Friday?

Max Lacado from the book, Six Hours One Friday as quoted on page 294 of 'His Passion' published by Integrity Publishers

Jeff Fuson

-Point Leader of Phos Church near Louisville Kentucky
-Leadership Keynote Speaker
-Husband / Daddy
-Missional Church Planter

Joshua's First Apple Pie!

Joshua made this pie crust from scratch and this pie was fantastic!
He's gonna be a great chef!

Kaleb Airbedaking !

Southgate House Stage

Brian says that Need to Breath will rock! Says we'll see a lot more
of em in the future......

Buckets of Hope for Haiti

Joy of Helping!

Buckets of Hope for Haiti

Bucket for Haiti ready to go

Standing on our Bucket of Hope for Haiti

Using Our Imagination to Build Faith

Oswald Chambers penned 'My Utmost for His Highest' which has become one of the most widely read devotional books of all time.

On February 11 he renders Isaiah 26:3 this way, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose imagination is stayed on Thee". I'm not sure what version he's using here but I resonate with using 'imagination' to focus on God.

What are you using your imagination for.

Powering up your imagination to focus on God is most likely pretty close to the Maker's intent. Because we're 'wired' to imagine we can pick up this tool and use it to FOCUS on God -- what He's done in the past and what He's doing now and imagining what He may be about to do next.


Isaiah 26:3 (New Living Translation)

3 You will keep in perfect peace
all who trust in you,
all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

Let's Imagine more deeply and 'fix' our thoughts on God.

As a leader we must be able to 'project' a God-Centered future filled with Hope and wonder for our people. Doing 'imagination workouts' builds our ability to project into the hearts and minds of others so that we can travel together.

Imagine what God could do with YOU if you trusted Him completely.

Jeff Fuson

-Point Leader of Phos Church near Louisville Kentucky
-Leadership Keynote Speaker
-Husband / Daddy
-Missional Church Planter

U.K. Basketball LIVE from Rupp Arena!

The UPS WorldPort Tour!

Hanging at the UPS World-Port with David Boon. What an incredible bunch of engineering this is. The number of packages moving on the miles of conveyors is impressive! Saw lots and lots of Amazon 'smiley face' boxes on the conveyors!

There were Electic Panels like this all over the place loaded with dozens of Progammable Logic Controls (aka, robot brains) in each cabinet. The world-port was loaded with PLCs that automate nearly every thing imaginable right down to how boxes 'merge' from two belts onto one and the boxes never jam or crash because PLCs accelerate/decelerate the conveyors to manage the package traffic!






There were hundreds of 'small sort' bagging stations like this. The system is so smart that it calculates the volume of packages in each bag and shuts down the feed into that bag when it should be full. It will keep that feed shut down until the operator puts a new bag in place.








This is the 'cardboard carrier return' slide. It's hard to imagine the scale of this operation from the pictures on this page, but it's MASSIVE! And cool, and imaginative, and clean!












p.s. I'm on Twitter at JeffFuson if you wanna keep up with what's going on that way. Jeff Fuson is a Leadership Keynote Speaker who serves as Point Leader for Phos Hilaron Church near Louisville Kentucky. Jeff's # 1 passion is being a husband and daddy. A close second is seeing people grow spiritually. As a Professional Speaker Jeff delivers Leadership Keynote Speeches & training events for Leaders, Executives, Supervisors, Entrepreneurs in Government, Banks, Credit Unions, NonProfits and other cutting edge enterprises. He's got one incredible wife and 3 awesome children.

Getting BIG!

I'm more convinced than ever that to lead well is to follow well.  That for you to fulfill your highest potential that you will have to choose to follow someone 'bigger' than you.  That the quality of the one you follow will determine the quality and qualities of your life.

More specifically, for a leader to become a great leader she/he will have to choose a 'greater' leader to follow.  You'll have to choose a person to follow, to emulate, to learn from and take her/his way of life into your core.  The more like the leader you follow you become the more likely you'll excavate the full range of gifts, talents, aptitudes, abilities, and preferences that were hard-wired into you and / or that you've picked up through living. 

So, choose wisely.  Choose to follow someone who represents the highest levels possible. 

As for me, I've chosen Jesus Christ as the greatest person, and the greatest leader of all time. 

I don't know of a person who lived a more exemplary life, who led better or who I'd want to become like in the end game of my life.  In addition to Christ himself, there are those who have followed Christ well that I am learning from and drawing close to both in person and in books, sermons, podcasts, vimeo, etc.  We have more access to great people than ever through the internet and the explosion of portable technologies that make a great person's thinking just a tap away.  Those sorts of people make up my 'upward mentors'.  Those who are deeply committed to living and leading like Jesus are my 'heroes' and point the way to the True North Principles of Living With and Like Jesus. 

Dallas Willard has been one of those 'upward mentors' for me through his writing.  The most important book that I've ever read (and still study) is 'Renovation of the Heart'.  For the first time in my life I learned how to overcome the 'stuff' that was constantly tripping me up.  I learned how to access the power for transformation that comes through a reliance on Grace and the Holy Spirit.  I'd highly recommend that book to anyone who wants to seriously follow Jesus.

I'm reading another Dallas Willard book today called 'The Great Omission' and finding it to be impacting and true.   This quote sums up the opening volley of his book,

'Nothing less than life in the steps of Christ is adequate to the human soul or the needs of our world.'

As the point leader of Phos Church and as a student of leadership and the outcomes of great leadership who is concerned about how we, as Christ-ones, impact the world, this has become my blazing passion.  To see the people I serve/lead get 'BIG' in their faith and walk with Christ.  To see them treat following Christ and the restoration of their hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit as the highest priorities of their lives.  All else will take care of itself. 

Our community and our world is dying for us to become full-on Holy Spirit empowered Christ-Ones who will live, love, and lead like Jesus.  When this happens our lives will be changed for the better and the world will be changed much for the better. 

In Jesus' most famous prayer he prayed, 'Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.' 

Jesus was very interested in the participation of His followers in His incarnation.  Because when we are immersed in participation (living in & with) in the 'incarnation' of Christ the transformation of our situation and the situation of others is imminent. 

So, I'm calling myself and you to full participation in the incarnation of Christ so that our situation's transformation will come quickly. 

Jesus was more interested in our participation in His incarnation than he was in evacuation from the situation.  He knew that our participation would lead the transformation of the situation of the world. 

Live BIG,

Jeff Fuson

Jeff Fuson

p.s. I'm on Twitter at JeffFuson if you wanna keep up with what's going on that way.

Jeff Fuson is a Leadership Keynote Speaker who serves as Point Leader for Phos Hilaron Church near Louisville Kentucky. Jeff's # 1 passion is being a husband and daddy. A close second is seeing people grow spiritually. As a Professional Speaker Jeff delivers Leadership Keynote Speeches & training events for Leaders, Executives, Supervisors, Entrepreneurs in Government, Banks, Credit Unions, NonProfits and other cutting edge enterprises. He's got one incredible wife and 3 awesome children.

Amazing LINCOLN Corn Maze

Joshua's Tater Gun III

Joshua's tater Cannon II

Third Day at Freedom Hall Louisville

Discovering God's Vision for Your Church

Vision is discovered in prayer and solitude with God.

Based on this talk at this URL:
http://www.faithlab.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=274:mel-talk-harry-rowland&catid=38:mel-talks&Itemid=100061

Harry Rowland is the CBF Director of Missional Church Ministries for Global Missions. Harry’s talk is titled: "A Right-Side Up Church in an Upside-Down World." In Acts 17:6, the church is accused of turning the world “upside down.” For the western church to not just survive, but rather thrive, it must embrace its founding missional call. This is not a call to do missions, but rather a call to be on mission in such a way that neither you, the church, or the world will ever be the same again.

Harry has a love and expertise for assisting local churches in making the transition from institution churches that do missions to missional churches whose DNA is missions.

Notes from the talk:
The world’s way of generating vision is built around Predicting and planning….the Kingdom path to vision is prayer and preparing to say yes to whatever God tells us to do.

A vision will come to a church that’s willing to be:

• a disturbed church by the things that disturb God as opposed to the stuff that
      -when a church seeks to meet human needs it gets messy
• a shattered church – not pretending to have it all together, rather letting the bright love of Christ show through our shattered fragments
• a dropsy/clumsy church that’s willing to ‘drop’ it and to ‘forgive’ others because we won’t hang onto their past….
  

 Thanks to John Lepper, Coordinator of the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship for hooking me up with this information through FaithLabs.com

Have a great day,

Jeff Fuson

p.s. I'm on Twitter at JeffFuson if you wanna keep up with what's going on that way.

Jeff Fuson is a Leadership Keynote Speaker who serves as Point Leader for Phos Hilaron Church near Louisville Kentucky. Jeff's # 1 passion is being a husband and daddy. A close second is seeing people grow spiritually. As a Professional Speaker Jeff delivers Leadership Keynote Speeches & training events for Leaders, Executives, Supervisors, Entrepreneurs in Government, Banks, Credit Unions, NonProfits and other cutting edge enterprises. He's got one incredible wife and 3 awesome children.

Strategic Thinking These Days -- interesting blog post with super questions

Just ran across this blog post and it's great for those who want to 'win' (whatever your definition is) no matter what the economy is like.  Enjoy

http://blog.inc.com/women-in-business/2009/09/being_strategic_live_from_the.html

Jeff Fuson

p.s. I'm on Twitter at JeffFuson if you wanna keep up with what's going on that way.

Jeff Fuson is a Leadership Keynote Speaker who serves as Point Leader for Phos Hilaron Church near Louisville Kentucky. Jeff's # 1 passion is being a husband and daddy. A close second is seeing people grow spiritually. As a Professional Speaker Jeff delivers Leadership Keynote Speeches & training events for Leaders, Executives, Supervisors, Entrepreneurs in Government, Banks, Credit Unions, NonProfits and other cutting edge enterprises. He's got one incredible wife and 3 awesome children.

Get your rear in Gear! Serve with kids.

Josh shooting clay Pigeons

2 of 3! Best shooter so far!

Hunter Safety Class